Let's Talk Safety

Valujet Crash Fuels Concern Over Low-cost Carriers

June 16, 1996|By Alfred Borcover.

There's a lot of talk about airline safety these days, and that's not a bad thing.

The crash of ValuJet Flight 593 in the Florida Everglades last month ignited a seemingly endless stream of questions about the new flock of upstart airlines--the age of their aircraft, pilot and crew training, the contracting out of maintenance, the safety records of low-cost carriers and conflicting roles of the Federal Aviation Administration. There's no indication that any of those factors played a role in the crash.

Yet one vexing question will linger, perhaps forever: Is it safe to fly the low-cost carriers? Even more, is it safe to fly at all?

Statistically, flying is very safe. There are no absolutes when it comes to airline safety because aircraft accidents are random happenings. No one can predict when or how the next accident might occur, or whether the plane will belong to a startup or major carrier.

"There is no correlation between the level of fares and level of safety," said Aaron Gellman, director of Northwestern University's Transportation Center, in a telephone interview. "ValuJet is an anomaly. It's one carrier out of many."

"The risk of flying jets in the United States is infinitesimal," Arnold Barnett, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the New York Times. Barnett, who has compiled and studied aviation safety statistics for 20 years, gave the Times this illustration:

Imagine boarding a flight on a randomly chosen airline every day. On average, you would fly for about 21,000 years before dying in a crash.

People question airline safety when they see media attention on the issue, Barnett told me in an interview last year. "The only point that comforts me is that if there is excessive attention given to the dangers of flying, the fact that there is such an obsession probably contributes to keeping risk levels low."

Since the ValuJet crash, tens of thousands of passengers have flown safely on low-cost carriers such as Air South, American Trans Air, Frontier, Kiwi, Reno Air, Southwest, Spirit, Vanguard and Western Pacific. And millions more have flown safely on major carriers.

Any airline crash makes people hesitant to fly. But, as news coverage on a crash diminishes and time distances people from the event, flying doesn't seem so intimidating. After all, no one has a second thought about jumping into his or her auto after seeing a graphic report about a fatal car crash on the 10 o'clock television news.

If safety isn't a criterion for choosing an airline, what is?

Gellman suggested that concerned flyers also look at an airline's reliability--schedule keeping, for example--rather than price as a factor when choosing a carrier.

But, Gellman noted, you can define reliability any way you want. One travel agent, he said, helps business clients choose flights based on data from the U.S. Transportation Department's monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, which contains information about airline on-time arrivals, mishandled baggage and consumer complaints.

Whether airline passengers concern themselves more with reliability or price depends upon individual flyers. Some business travelers are ordered to save money and opt for the lowest fares between destinations. Other choose flights that offer the best or most departure times. Still others value in-flight meals (honest!) and leg room, although it's hard to find a really comfortable Coach configuration on any airline these days. And there are passengers who don't care about anything but price.

A Transportation Department report on "the low-cost airline service revolution" issued in April shows that American consumers have saved an estimated $6.3 billion in airline fares in the last year "because of competition brought on by new low-cost, low-fare airlines--up from $1 billion in savings eight years ago."

"To the average passenger in cities where low-cost carriers exist, they've reduced the average one-way ticket $54--or $70, if a city happens to be a major airline's hub," said Transportation Secretary Federico Pena. "Last year an incredible 47 million new passengers flew because of low-fare airlines. Today, one of every seven passengers is flying because of the competition provided by these airlines. And taken together, these carriers are now larger than our nation's largest carrier."

Spurred by the success of Southwest Airlines and ValuJet, new low-cost carriers have entered the marketplace. Southwest, because of its low operating costs and success wherever it flies, left no doubt in the airline industry about the ability of a low-cost carrier to turn a profit. Pena noted that the Transportation Department has certified 20 new passenger operators since 1992.

Not all of the low-fare airlines see themselves the same way. Kiwi International, for example, markets itself more like a major airline in terms of organization, experience and level of service. "We have low fares, but a high level of service," said Kiwi spokesman Rob Kulat.